Curiouser and Curiouser
by stress
Summary: Newsies & Alice in Wonderland Crossover: Stress has accidentally stumbled into the wonderful world of Newsieland. Will she ever get back home to New Jersey? Not if the Queen of New York has her way.
1. That boy is what? Hopping?

Author's Note: _Yes, it's me again. While my goal this summer is to hit a certain amount of words, I also want to hit 50 archived pieces here. This one shall become #49 – and, in a way, I'm cheating. This is a continuation/total rewrite of a story I started 4 years ago: _Stress in Newsieland_. While I have a whole mess of stories to work on, I have none that are 'humor'. I also wanted to do a parody – and as everyone chooses to do _Wizard of Oz, _I have chosen to do this. So, forget the earlier version of this story – this is going to be better. And, hopefully, finished. _

_I lost the cast list that was originally intended for SiN; if you want a comedic appearance, give me the usual in a review (name, nn, age, looks, personality, character). Hopefully you know what characters are in Alice in Wonderland; if anything, for the next chapter I need a dodo character and one or two caucus race runners. _

Disclaimer: _No, I do not own Disney's live action musical: _Newsies. _No, I do not own Lewis Carroll's novel, _Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland, _nor Disney's cartoon version of _Alice in Wonderland_. I own Stress, her cat Ashes (he really is a sweetie and would never let me bring him outside so that part is a_ total_ exaggeration) and her fixation with _hopping.

_-- _

_Curiouser and Curiouser _

June 5, 2006

_Stress has accidentally stumbled into the wonderful world of Newsieland.  
__Will she ever get back home to New Jersey? Not if the Queen of New York has her way.  
_

_-- _

_Slam_. Without even turning behind her, she knew that the backdoor had closed tight. _Good_. The sound that the wooden door had made illustrated her darkened mood perfectly. With her free hand, she brushed a loose light brown curl out of her face. The way she felt at that moment, if the curl did not remain in place, she would rip it out. The lock of hair seemed to sense her frustration and, smartly, kept in place.

She continued storming away from the back of her house, intent on getting away as far as possible before she lose her temper entirely. She kept her quickened pace up until she had made it about four apartments down – where the building ended and the brief stretch of grass began. She placed the grey bundle of fur that she had held in her arms down on the ground before finding a seat under a nearby tree. Almost at once, the shade seemed to relax her.

"Why?" she asked aloud. Her grey cat, curled up at her feet, just mewed in a agreement. He wasn't too happy that she had stormed out of the nice, air-conditioned house, just to sit in the grass but he dealt with it by doing what he normally did: rubbed up against a pair of shoes and fell asleep. Ignoring the less than enthusiastic response of her feline companion, she continued to talk to herself. "Why did Kathryn's dance recital have to be today? Didn't she know what I was planning to do today?"

Annoyed, she leaned back up against the bark of the tree, hoping that none of those little green bugs would decide to drop in her hair. She sat in silence for a moment, picking up a blade of two of grass and ripping them absent-mindedly, before throwing them down carelessly. Then she began her rant again. "I've been talking about this Rally in the City for weeks now. All of my _Newsies_ buddies are gonna be there." The girl, nicknamed Stress to those in the _Newsiesverse _– or, the _Newsies _fandom to those not cool enough to know what the _Newsiesverse_ is – had been looking forward to the get-together all summer long – up until that morning, that is. It was just a few minutes ago that her mother informed her that the dance recital had been moved up – and family always comes first.

Stroking her cat's tail, Stress asked the one question that she had tossed at her mother before storming from the house. "Why did they have to change to day for that stupid thing?" She reached out, grabbed the cat around his middle, and lifted him up so that her green eyes were reflected in his golden ones. "Do you know, Ashes?"

He looked at her and meowed once before kicking out his hind legs. He hated to be held up like that.

She sighed and let Ashes fall back to the ground. The cat backed away until he was back at the tip of her outstretched feet. He went back asleep. Stress rubbed the edge of his triangle-shaped ears until she heard a slight hum coming from the sleeping feline. She smiled and, after scooting downward and away from the tree, stretched out on her back. She kept her eyes looking upward, focusing on the various shapes of the clouds; but her mind was not on the wisps and patterns of those clouds. She was thinking about the Rally that would be happening in the City in a few hours time. The Rally that she was going to miss.

Huffing slightly in frustration, Stress drew herself up, resting on her elbows. Rather than face outward and look at the constant stream of summer traffic down past the small field, she gazed at the line of trees that fenced off the edge of the apartments.

Just past the mini-woods that adorned her backyard, she could make out the baseball field connected to the local Community Center, just a few blocks away from her house. _That's weird_, she thought to herself, _there's usually a whole mess of neighborhood brats playing out on the field – especially on such a nice day like this_. But there was no one there. She was alone. _I guess they all know better than be around me when I'm pissed_, she thought, keeping her eyes on the tranquil scene. It was rare that it was so quiet out in the back.

How long she sat out in the grass, watching the field, she didn't know – her watch had been missing for a whole week now and, without it, she had lost all sense of time. All she knew was that, for all intents and purposes, she was alone. No one was bothering her and that was how she liked it.

And _that _is when it happened.

Just past the line of trees, over the chain link fence that surrounded the baseball field, and next to first base, a person appeared out of nowhere. Or, at least, she thought it was a person – while they were too far away for her to distinguish who, or what, it was, she could definitely see that they were hopping. _Hopping_?

She quickly got to her feet. If curiosity killed the cat, then maybe she should have been called Kathryn instead of Jessica. As quick as she could, and never taking her eye off of the hopping _thing_ on the field, she clipped Ashes' kitty leash to his collar, and tied it around a branch of the tree. He mewed pitifully, but she ignored him. _He only does it for the attention_, she thought before hurrying away. _Besides, I'll be right back. I just want to see that that _thing _is. _

She rushed through the trees, and quickly climbed over the fence. Her muscles were telling her to take it easy – she wasn't a young kid anymore, she was 18 damn it! – but she ignored it. What if what she had seen was the hopping, jumping missing link? There was money to be made in such a discovery. And if it wasn't the hopping, jumping missing link? Well, then she could point and laugh and someone who spent their time hopping across a playing field. Heck, it might even make her feel better about missing her Rally.

And boy, was she in for a surprise. When she finally got over the fence, and began to power walk – she was too dignified to flat-out run – across the field, she could make out the _thing_: it was a boy dressed in turn-of-the-century style clothing with curly brown hair and narrowed blue eyes that were fixed on a golden pocket watch. He had paused momentarily in his _hopping_ and, when he looked up from the time, she got a good glimpse at his face.

The boy was a dead ringer for David Jacobs. When he glanced up, and saw Stress a few yards away from him, he began to hurry away. And he was still _hopping_. She couldn't miss it from this proximity. The boy was _hopping_.

"Hey, dude, wait up," she called out to him. She was somewhat out of breath from crossing the field. The last thing she wanted now is for him to hurry away before she could talk to him and get an even better look at his face. _He can't really be David Jacobs, can he? He's a character for goodness sake!_ As obsessed as she could be at times, Stress did have an ounce of common sense – sometimes.

Not surprisingly, David – or what she assumed was David; it's easier just to refer to him as such, right? – ignored her call. Instead, he reached in his pants pocket, withdrew that golden pocket watch of his again, and looked at the hands – while still _hopping_. He was still _hopping_. "I'm late," he said before shoving the watch back in his pocket and speeding up his _hopping_. _Hopping_.

She paused for a moment, trying not to laugh at the humor of the situation. _Hopping? _She just couldn't get past the _hopping_. She let herself laugh twice – _ha, ha­ _– before continuing after David. But he was gone. In the time that it took her to laugh twice, he had disappeared. "Shoot," she muttered under her breath. She increased the speed of her power walk – she still wasn't going to run – continuing on the path she knew the _hopping _boy had taken. As she went, she began to talk to herself, trying to convince herself that she hadn't seen what she thought she had seen. "That really can't be David Jacobs. He looks the same as David Moscow did almost 15 years ago – it's impossible. Movie characters just don't pop up out of nowhere, Right? Rigggggghhhhh—"

The rest of her mutterings were cut off when she stumbled into, and consequently began falling down, a rather large hole just passed the third base line. A hole which, she knew, had never been there before.


	2. You can't argue with a polite bottle

Author's Note: _I know that I haven't closed my rather large casting call yet but I went over the earlier version of this story and characters other than Stress and my own white rabbit (thank you, David) don't appear until chapter 4 – or maybe 3 if I could work it. So I might as well get another chapter out. Woot._

Disclaimer: _No, I do not own Disney's live action musical: _Newsies. _No, I do not own Lewis Carroll's novel, _Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland, _nor Disney's cartoon version of _Alice in Wonderland_. I own Stress, her cat Ashes and her fixation with _hopping.

_--_

_Curiouser_ _and Curiouser_

June 9, 2006

_Stress has accidentally stumbled into the wonderful world of Newsieland.  
__Will she ever get back home to New Jersey? Not if the Queen of New York has her way._

--

Throwing her arms up in surprise, Stress found herself tumbling down a dark hole. But the dark didn't last that long and, as she continued to drop, gravity seemed to fade away. She was falling, yes, but falling ever so slowly. Time began to drag.

With an exaggerated expression, she glanced at her left wrist, wondering if time really had just decided to stop. However, her wrist was naked; she had forgotten about losing her watch the week before. She dwelled on the missing timepiece for a few seconds before being struck by what could only be described as a brilliant idea. She started to flap her arms excitedly, hoping that the motion would fly her back up to the mouth of the hole.

It didn't work.

Maybe the idea wasn't at brilliant as she first thought it was.

Rather than look upwards and face her fleeting freedom, she turned her gaze down. While it wasn't as dark as it had been when she first began to fall, she couldn't make out anything below her. It seemed only to grow darker again the farther she went.

It was then, as she stared into the dark abyss that threatened to swallow her up – whenever she got around to falling all the way, of course --- that she began to panic. "What if I never stop falling?" she asked herself out loud. "Or, what if I keep falling until I reach the center of the Earth? I'll be burnt to a crisp."

Now, being burnt to a crisp was not an option. Her poor Irish skin couldn't even handle being outside in the sun for more than a few hours before she was lobster-red. She tried to aim her falling more to the right. Maybe, if she was lucky, she could find the edge of the hole and hang on. Then it would just be up to her to climb up.

Using the little light she had, Stress made her way closer before stretching her hand out and groping around. But, rather than find anything that could be used as a foothold or a ladder, her fingers made contact with a light switch or, at the very least, a hard rock that was shaped like a light switch.

She switched it up. The rock shaped like a light switch moved. A light came on.

She was so surprised – and blinded – by the sudden light that she didn't notice her surroundings straight away. She raised a hand up and rubbed her eyes twice before looking around. She did a double-take and then a triple-take. Floating alongside, around and directly below her were a shelf of books, an old grandfather clock, a bowl of fruit – _hey that apple has a bite mark in it _– and various other odds and ends that she was now trying hard to duck. It didn't matter that they were falling at an even more exaggerated pace than she. That clock looked heavy. "This is weird," she said to herself, dodging a hairbrush, "I always thought that dark holes underground would be empty." She shrugged. "Shows how much I know."

As she slowly passed the bookshelf, her hand shot out and reached for a book. _At least I'll have something to read as I fall to my fiery doom_. That was before she saw which book she had grabbed. _Alice's Adventures in Wonderland_ by Lewis Carroll. "Of course this darn hole would have to have a sense of humor," she muttered and tossed the book over her shoulder.

In her distraction, Stress used more force to throw the book back than she should have. The momentum caused her to turn a flip mid-air. However, the flip did not had enough _umph_ to complete so she found herself drifted downwards, face-down.

As she remained upside down, she began to wonder where exactly this hole would lead her. She, conveniently, refused to believe that she would end up in the Earth's core. The book she had found had given her an idea and she was much fonder of fantasy than science. "When Alice fell down the rabbit hole in _Alice in Wonderland_, she ended up in Wonderland. Since I fell down a newsie hole, where will I end up?" Then she shook her head. She may believe in fantasy but she wasn't that much of a loon. A newsie hole? _I think I've seen _Newsies _one too many times if I think I fell down a newsie hole._

She was just about to debate whether or not this hole would lead to China or Australia – for, she was a historian not a geography major – when, all of a sudden, the bottom to the hole appeared out of nowhere.

Because she was still heading downward with her head first, she banged it on the floor. The sudden contact – and the return of gravity – caused her to flip around so that she was lying flat on her back. "Ouch," she muttered, slowly sitting up. She was just wondering who it was she was going to sue when a figure in the distance caught her eye. Her pain momentarily forgotten, Stress got up. Even though there was a good deal of floor between them, she recognized the _hop_. It was David.

"Hey, kid," she called after him, brushing imaginary dirt off her jeans – it's a habit – before hurrying after him. "Yo, wait for me!"

And despite the distance between them, she could make out a faint response. "It's getting late." Then he was gone followed only by the slam of a closing door. She couldn't believe him.

"Ew, rude much? I fall down that weird ass hole just to speak to that kid and he tells me 'it's getting late'. He'll wish it was much later when I get my hands on him," she fumed as she stalked forward, barely noticing her surroundings now. She was in a tunnel of some sort, but a tunnel with pink and purple polka dots. When she realized the awful print, she was even more careful to keep her face straight. The garishness of it all hurt her eyes.

Muttering slightly under her breath, she kept going forward. If anything, she was going to get some answers from this _David _and then make him bring her home. Hell, if he could go _hopping _around her backyard, he better be able to leave this underground place to bring her back.

With every step she took, Stress was more sure that this hole mess was the _hopping _boys fault. Forget that she was the one who was so nosy that she went chasing after him – he shouldn't have been out _hopping _around where anyone could see him to follow. Yes, it was all his fault.

Just when she had decided that she was nothing more than an innocent bystander, Stress arrived at the end of the tunnel. Actually, she was still going full force ahead when she slammed into a large brown door. That's when she knew that she had reached the end of the tunnel. With a wary eye, Stress took in the door. "Hmmm… Looks just like my closet door," she remarked as she reached for the door handle.

But, when she opened the door, all she find inside was another, albeit smaller, red door with an identical handle. She opened that one just as determinedly.

And found another door. It was smaller, lighter in color – it was a nice lavender shade – and had a golden knob. By now the girl was – understandably – getting frustrated. She stamped on the black and white checked tiled floor once before turning back to the door. She bent down slightly – it was about half her height -- and swung it open.

There was another door. She cursed under her breath to find a door about a third her size, white in color, with a black knob and matching keyhole. She tried to open that door, though she had no idea how she was going to squeeze her big butt through the small opening, but found that – unlike the three other doors – it was locked. "Fine," she said, speaking to the offending door, "I didn't want to open you anyway." Pouting slightly – she really did want to open the door – she crossed her arms and turned away, intent on trying to find another way out of the tunnel without dealing with nesting doll type doors.

There was one small problem, though. During the time she had spent opening the three doors, a wall had sprung up behind her, effectively trapping her in a small room that only led to that one door. Once she realized that she was trapped, Stress started to bang on the wall. "That ain't fair," she yelled, "you can't just trap me here like that."

When the wall gave no indication of moving – at that point, she wouldn't have been surprised if the wall grew a mouth and apologized to her for her troubles before disappearing – Stress turned back to face the white door. She jiggled the handle violently, and when it didn't give, she slumped against the wall in frustration. She tucked her head in her lap for a few minutes and sat still, all the while wishing she was back in New Jersey. Even her sister's dance recital would be better than this.

And that's when she heard a loud thump.

At first she thought it was David, _hopping _again. But, when she lifted her head up, she did not see the boy. "You're not David," she acknowledged when it was not the newsie-looking boy but a waist-high glass table that had joined her in the small room.

"That's weird," she murmured as she stood up and walked over to the table in order to inspect the new arrival. _Wait? What's this, _she thought before extending her hand and reaching for a glass bottle – a glass bottle filled with a blood-red liquid, she saw – that had just popped into existence when she approached the table. The bottle had been sitting atop a white card and she lifted that up with her other hand. In ink as red as the liquid inside the bottle, two words were scrawled on the card. _Drink me_.

She almost laughed at the order. "Yeah, sure," she said as she placed both the card and the bottle back down. "Like I'm gonna drink out of a bottle that appeared out of thin air into a room that I've been trapped in after falling down a newsie hole. Whatever you say," she said before returning to the corner she had been pouting in. It was a good pouting corner.

It was after she had resumed her earlier pouting position that she heard the thump again. She lifted her head warily and gave the table the _evil eye_. "What do you want now?"

The table just glistened innocently amidst the artificial light that was flooding the room.

Stress stood once more and just stared at the table and the bottle still resting upon it. Shrugging, she reached out and picked up the bottle and the card again. She stifled a giggle when she read the card. It had been amended and now read: _Drink me, please_. _Well, I can't argue with a polite bottle, can I?_

With that weird feeling in the pit of her stomach that said that she would probably regret her actions later, Stress removed the stopper from the glass bottle and began to swallow the contents. Within three gulps, the bottle was empty. "Mmm," she said, licking her lips, "tastes just like chicken."

When nothing happened after she downed the bottle's contents, she shook her head and wondered why exactly her tummy had tingled. _What was I expecting? To pull an 'Alice' and shrink down to three inches tall? Whatever._

Strangely enough, once she had finished her thought, the tingle in her tummy erupted into a rumble. She clutched her abdomen nervously, already regretting drinking that stuff. It really had looked like blood to her. _Great, I'm probably gonna turn into a vampire now._

But, rather than go all _Lost Boys_, something else happened.

True to her earlier expectation, Stress began to shrink.


	3. What is there to do when a nose itches?

Author's Note: _And here is the third chapter. David makes a cameo and reveals that, contrary to her belief, Stress is not that crazy. Woot. And, yay, listees start appearing next chapter. I should have the casting call resolved some point today._

Disclaimer: _No, I do not own Disney's live action musical: _Newsies. _No, I do not own Lewis Carroll's novel, _Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland, _nor Disney's cartoon version of _Alice in Wonderland_. I own Stress, her cat Ashes and her fixation with _hopping.

_--_

_Curiouser_ _and Curiouser_

June 12, 2006

_Stress has accidentally stumbled into the wonderful world of Newsieland.  
__Will she ever get back home to New Jersey? Not if the Queen of New York has her way._

--

Before she knew it, Stress had shrunk down to exactly six inches, just the height to reach the door handle if she stood on her tippy-toes and grabbed upwards. "Well," she said when she realized that being this small had some benefits, "at least I can get out of this room now. I was beginning to get claustrophobic in here." She wrapped her arms around the top of the knob and jiggled it slightly. It was only then that she remembered that the door was still locked; just because she shrunk down to a size that would allow her to fit through the door, it didn't mean that the door unlocked.

"Shoot," she muttered under her breath and kicked the door. A slight scuff was left behind on the white door but she ignored it. "What do I do now?" Stress looked at the floor, the walls, the ceiling and, lastly, the glass table. And that was when she saw it, resting on the table top. From her position underneath the table, she could see a key that could only be meant for one door. _That wasn't there a minute ago_, she knew but shrugged. It only followed that, if a glass bottle and table could appear out of nowhere, a key could pop up as well.

She tried to climb up one of the glass legs of the table. She got about an inch or two off of the ground before sliding back down and landing on her rear. _So that's why I never got an A in gym class_.

She tried twelve more times, each time sliding back down to land on the tiled floor. On the thirteenth try, when she fell off and landed on her butt, she got up and proceeded to kick the table. Unfortunately for her, when she kicked it, she found that a glass table was a lot harder than a white door. While hopping around and clutching her sore foot with her right hand, she pointed at the table and scolded, "If you can make a bottle of juice that makes me shrink appear, and then a key, you can figure out how to get that key down to me."

Whether the table listened to her complaints or not, she'll never know, but a small cardboard box appeared behind her. While she was she still hopping around like an idiot – and trying her damndest not to feel like that strange _hopping_ boy she had seen earlier and was eager to get her hands on again – Stress promptly tripped over the box.

"Oomph," she said as she fell backwards and landed on her rear again. If she kept this up, she was going to have one hell of a bruise when she got back home. Rubbing her backside furiously, Stress reached out and grabbed the box. She lifted the lid slowly and was excited to see that there were freshly baked chocolate chip cookies cooling in the box. It was only then that she realized how hungry landing on her rear had made her.

"Mmmm…cookies…" she drooled as she greedily reached in and took out a handful of cookie. They didn't even need to have the words 'Eat me' spelled out in chocolate chips like they did; she ate them all immediately.

"That was good," she said and patted her stomach before taking a seat next to the wall. "I wish there were some mooooooooooo-" Her thoughts were cut off when, at that moment, she went from six inches high to about thirty feet tall. "-re?"

Shocked and surprised at her sudden growth spurt, Stress just stared down at her tiny feet in amazement. _At least the room expanding with me_, she thought when she looked up and saw that that the ceiling, only about eight feet high a moment ago, was now about fifty feet high. She squinted slightly and was just able to make out the sparkling glass table right next to her left foot. "Hey, I can reach the key now," she said out loud, trying to find the good in the situation before, of course, finding the bad. "But what good will that key do? I doubt even my pinkie could get through that door now."

Stress' jaw dropped open as realization dawned on her. She was stuck. And she wasn't just stuck because she couldn't leave the room; she was stuck in a fashion that meant if her nose was itchy, she wouldn't be able to scratch the itch.

Like always, once you start to think of a way to make your situation worse, it happens. "Damn it, I can't scratch my nose now. And it itches soooo bad. What am I gonna do?" Enormous tear drops began spilling from her cheeks and she began to cry her frustrations out. "I _really_ need to scratch," she moaned to herself as she tried feverishly to raise her gigantic hand to her face. But her nose remained itchy.

She sobbed and sobbed until she saw the tiny white door open. Curiosity got the better of her and she stopped her crying for a moment. Not like it really mattered, she had already made an Olympic size swimming pool with her tears.

"What is all this?" asked a voice. Someone was wading through the small lake.

Stress squinted her eyes again and smiled when she saw who it was. It was a relieved smile even though, a few minutes ago, she was wishing she could just throttle the boy. "David?"

The newsie looked down at his pocket watch real quick then put it away and drew out a carrot from his pocket. "Mmm…lunch," he said as she took a rather large bit from the tip of the carrot. After munching on it, he turned his head upward. "Oh, I'm sorry. Do I happen to know you? My name is David. David Jacobs," he said, introducing himself and sticking out his hand in an attempt to shake. But, when her realized that his companion was way too large to perform the niceties, he took his hand back and placed it in his pocket. "Yes, well…"

Now, if it wasn't for the fact that she was about six times her normal size, Stress probably would have jumped for joy. Not only was she not crazy for thinking she had fallen down a newsie hole but she was actually meeting David Jacobs. "I know," she began before trying to ask the newsie for help. But, just when she started to explain her problem, the boy cut her off. "Listen, I ne—"

David alternatively swam and _hopped _his way over to the glass table that was currently floating in the water. Once he had jumped up onto the table and was able to refrain from getting soaked he looked up at the giantess before him. "Excuse me, Miss? You are a miss, aren't you?"

She just looked down at him.

David shook his head and continued with his questions. "Well, then, are you crying?"

Stress rolled her eyes before answering his question this time. "Well, duh, David. Wouldn't you start to bawl if you were thirty feet tall and trapped in a room, in a place that you fell from a hole into? I mean, where the hell am I?"

Rather than answer her right away, David looked down at his pocket watch again before finishing off the rest of his carrot. "It's getting late," was all he said and he hopped off of the table, pocketing the key that was sitting on the table as he did so. "The King of New York always gets so nervous when his precious key pulls its disappearing act," he explained to her as he tried to make his way back to the white door from where he had entered.

"Wait, don't go. I need help!" Stress forgot her pleasure at meeting a newsie once she realized that David was going to leave her there alone.

He stopped and, as he treaded water, he looked up apologetically at her. "I'm sorry, miss, but the King and Queen of New York here in Newsieland aren't very patient people. As it is, I'm already late and I have to heading on my way." He began to swim away from her but stopped again when he heard her sniff. "Here, maybe this will help," he said and, slowly, he peeled his soaked blue shirt away from his skin, leaving only an off-white undershirt. He tossed it into the air and gave her a small wave. "Bye," he said and made his way over to the door. Despite the water that pressed up against it, he opened it up and exited without another word.

Stress watched as the shirt hung mid-air. "Like some tiny little bunny-boy's shirt is gonna help me get back to normal and escape from this room," she scoffed before she felt a familiar rumble in her tummy.

All of a sudden she began to shrink again. _What the… _She looked down and realized that the blue shirt was no longer floating mid-air; she was now wearing it. _This shirt must be making me grow smaller_, she realized and began to pull it off. If she didn't get rid of it soon, she might just shrink into nothingness.

Once the shirt was removed, though, she continued to shrink at an alarming rate. _What else could be making me shrink?_, she panicked as she looked down at herself. Nope, still the same white tank top, white keds and faded blue jeans that she had donned that morning. "Wait, what's this?" she wondered out loud as she felt the weight of something on her head. She ripped the object from her head and dropped it into the water. Somehow she was wearing a brown newsie hat.

Once the hat was floating around lazily in the water she stopped shrinking. Unfortunately, the damage had already been done. She was now about three inches tall and that was pretty much it.

"Damn it."


	4. It's the only way to get dry

Author's Note: _And here is chapter number four. It's really easy to update a story that was already written (I had this done up to chapter six the first time around) as all I have to do is rewrite it and revise it. Woot. I just want to say that I really appreciate the reviews that you guys have left – I wasn't sure that anyone was going to find any humor in this at all. So, yay to the reviewers. _

Disclaimer: _No, I do not own Disney's live action musical: _Newsies. _No, I do not own Lewis Carroll's novel, _Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland, _nor Disney's cartoon version of _Alice in Wonderland_. I own Stress, her cat Ashes and her fixation with _hopping _newsies_.

_-- _

_Curiouser_ _and Curiouser _

June 16, 2006

_Stress has accidentally stumbled into the wonderful world of Newsieland.  
Will she ever get back home to New Jersey? Not if the Queen of New York has her way._

--

Now that she was tiny again, she found that the lake of tears she had cried when she was huge had now turned into an ocean of sobs. Trying her damndest not to drown in her own tears, she began to tread the water. "I'm sure they would all get a kick out of that. The idiot that cried herself to death," she muttered, trying not to swallow any of the water. The tears were salty and tasted worse than the Atlantic Ocean did.

She looked around for something to grab a hold of. A wry smile came to her face when she spied the polite bottle from before. She doggy-paddled over to it and, when she was next to it, she noticed that it was a good inch or two bigger than she was – and the perfect size for her to climb inside so as not to drown.

"Hmm," she said, and slapped the inside of the bottle tentatively, "being shrunk down to near nothingness and floating around in a bottle. I never would have guessed that that would be how I'd spend today."

_Wait. _She smiled at the sudden thought. _It looked like the bunny-boy neglected to shut the door behind him. Maybe I can steer this bottle right outside now that I'm small enough. Then I won't be trapped in this weird room and I can explore – where did Dave say I was? Newsieland? … _Newsieland? And that's when it occurred to her that, truly, she wasn't in New Jersey anymore. _Well, it's gotta be better than sitting through Kathryn's dance recital._

Standing on her tippy-toes, Stress reached outside of the bottle. Using her arms as oars, she tried to row her way over to the door. Just as she had expected, the bottle slid right through the open crack.

On the other side of the door there was water but not as much as there was in the little room. _Damn, I must have cried a whole lot if it's flooded out here, too._ She shook her head and looked around at her surrounding. She appeared to be on a city's side street, almost, except for the water that filled the middle of the road up. And, there, at the boundary of the water, there were three people, all her size, standing around, looking confused at the sudden flood. Stress waved her hands over her head. "Hey? Over here," she called out, trying to get their attention.

The tallest of the three girls was one with long raven hair and bright blue eyes. She took a step over and waited for Stress to float over to her. Once she ran out of water to sail her glass bottle on, the bottle tipped over and she climbed out. The tallest girl walked over to her, followed by the two others: a shorter girl with pulled back chestnut-colored straight hair and green eyes and one who was slightly taller than her companion with medium brown curly hair and blue eyes. They were both gawking at her and she felt self-conscious.

The dark haired girl extended her tan hand, offering to Stress. She took it and let the girl help her to her feet. Once she was standing, the new girl looked at her quizzically. "Hello there. Are you wet?"

Stress looked down at her clothes before crossing her arms over her chest; her white tank that she was wearing was now see-through. She rolled her eyes. "Duh."

The tall girl walked around Stress once before asking her another question. "Why?"

"Why what?" Stress looked to the two other girls, the ones who were watching the dark-haired girl circle her, for help.

"Wish wants to know why you're wet," said one of the girls, the girl with the ponytail and green eyes, as she pointed to the taller girl.

"I'm wet? Oh yes, I suppose I am." Stress said, but she was a bit lost now. She was getting extremely confused talking to these girls.

"Why?" Wish stopped circling Stress and repeated her question.

"Why what?"

"Why are you wet?" This time it was the girl with the curly hair and blue eyes asking the question.

"Wait a sec, didn't we just go through this?" Stress rubbed her temples, trying to figure out what was going on. She would almost rather fancy a round two with the small room and the weird glass table than continue this circular conversation.

Ponytail decided that she had enough of this type of talk. She interrupted Wish – who appeared to be readying herself to start the whole cycle again – by holding her hands out. "I have an idea. Why don't we just start over? I'm Gimmick," she said pointing to her chest before gesturing to Curly Hair. "That is Zippy over there," she continued and Curly Hair – er, Zippy – waved. "That one over there is Wish. Don't mind her – she's just the nosy head of the welcome wagon here."

"Welcome wagon?"

Zippy nodded. "Yup. That's us. Welcome to Newsieland."

Wish looked a little put out that the other two girls had piped up. She cleared her throat and waited for all the attention to be put back on her. When they were all looking at her, she smiled. "Thanks for the intro's, Gimmick. I'll take it from here."

Gimmick shrugged and turned away. Zippy smiled and waited for Wish to continue. Stress, on the other hand, tried to back away as slowly as possible. "I'm cold. I'm wet. And I'm stuck with a bunch of loonies who think they are the welcome wagon of Newsieland. Just great."

Wish looked at Stress as if she was just seeing her for the first time. "You're wet? Well, why didn't you say so? I know just the thing to get you dry." She smiled and began to jump up and down while clapping her hands excitedly.

Stress paused and looked at Wish expectantly, waiting to hear what was her ingenious plan to get her dry. When Wish just continued to jump up and down like an idiot, she turned to Gimmick and Zippy. "Hey, do you guys know?"

Zippy stepped forward and placed her hand on Wish's shoulder so as to stop her from continuing to jump. "Wish? What's your great idea?" It was a direct approach to get an answer and, surprisingly, it worked.

"A caucus race," Wish bubbled, a genuine smile crossing her face. Both Zippy and Gimmick looked excited at the prospect.

Stress, however, did not. "A caucus race?"

"A caucus race," affirmed Wish as she nodded and motioned to the other girls to join her.

"What's a caucus race?" Stress grabbed the ends of her long hair and tried to wring the excess water from it as she looked over at Wish, puzzlement written all over her face.

"The best way to explain what a caucus race is to just do it," Wish answered before raising her arms over her head. "Everyone ready? Okay, on the count of three. One…two…three!" She dropped her arms with flourish and began running down the street.

Stress watched in amazement as Wish, Gimmick and Zippy all began to run up and down the street, heading this way and that, zigging and zagging in and out, making circles and doing squares. "What the…?" she said, not quite believing her eyes. Sure these girls were loonies but this was bit extreme.

"You'll never get dry that way. You gotta run with the others!" called Wish as she ran up behind Stress and prodded her in the backside. Stress squealed and then began to run in the same sort of fashion as the rest.

As she ran past the spot where Gimmick and Zippy were pulling at each other, trying to keep the other one from reaching the streetlight at the end of the block, she yelled out to them. "You guys are cheating!"

Wish twirled passed her then, giggling. "That, my friend, is a caucus race."

All of a sudden Zippy stopped and ran forward, pointing to a large statue of Horace Greeley that was in the middle of the street. "The finishing statue," she yelled, flinging her arms over her head in victory. "Who's won? Was it me? Did I win?"

Wish leapt forward and, mimicking Zippy's gesture with her own arms, exclaimed, "I think that everybody won!"

Gimmick stopped and scratched her head. "Well, if we all won, we should all get prizes, right?"

"Of course! But, wait, who will give out the prizes?" asked Zippy.

"Why, the new girl, of course!" Wish stated matter-of-factly.

Wish, Gimmick and Zippy all turned to look at Stress, their hands outstretched as they waited for their prizes.

Stress groped around her pockets and her eyes lit up when she found something that was prize-worthy in her back pocket. "Here you are" She pulled out a soggy pack of Big Red chewing gum and handed each of the girls a stick of the gum, praying that her tears hadn't got inside the foil wrapper. "Enjoy!"

Each one grabbed at her prize eagerly, not even bothering to say thank you. Once they had each received their prize, they promptly started walking away from her.

Stress couldn't believe how rude they were. "Wait a second. Where are you going? Don't leave me here alone," she called after them. But alas, they did not answer her. "Great, now I'm alone again."

And, no sooner where the words out of her mouth, did she hear footsteps right behind her. _Whoops. Spoke to soon._


	5. Do I look like a Sarah to you?

Author's Note: _Wow, I _really _am surprised at the feedback I'm getting with this story. It makes me all warm and fuzzy inside ;) So here is chapter number five. I hope you all enjoy it. _

Disclaimer: _No, I do not own Disney's live action musical: _Newsies. _No, I do not own Lewis Carroll's novel, _Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland, _nor Disney's cartoon version of _Alice in Wonderland_. I own Stress, her cat Ashes and her fixation with _hopping _newsies_.

_-- _

_Curiouser_ _and Curiouser _

June 19, 2006

_Stress has accidentally stumbled into the wonderful world of Newsieland.  
Will she ever get back home to New Jersey? Not if the Queen of New York has her way._

--

The hair on her arms began to stand on end and she nervously started to head down the street. "If I don't see them, they're not there," she muttered, trying to block out the rhythmic hippity-hop clopping of boots coming from right behind her. Just then, as she was hurrying away, she was beginning to wish that she had just stayed in that claustrophobic little room. It may have been small but it was safe. Or it was at least safer than wandering around a strange Newsieland city all by her lonesome. And there had been food inside. She smiled, remembering the tasty _eat me_ cookies – even if those cookies had made her ginormous.

Stress continued walking and breathed a sigh of relief when the sound of the footsteps died away and just stopped. Wiping an imaginary bead of sweat off of her brow – because that's what one does, you know – she kept walking until she made it to the end of the block. She would have kept walking except, at the end of the block, there was a great white house, complete with white picket fence, which caught her attention. "Whoa, nice house. I wonder who lives here." Luckily, though, she didn't have long to wonder because as she leaned against the picket fence, careful not to touch the pointy top, the hippity-hop clopping came back followed by a startled cry of "Sarah!"

Though Sarah definitely was not her name, Stress spun around to finally face whoever it was that had followed her down the street. Surprisingly – or, rather, unsurprisingly given that she should have known that only one person in this strange Newsieland would make such a hippity-hop clopping noise – it was David.

David took one last hop forward before landing a few feet away from Stress. "Sarah, what are you doing outside of the house? You haven't been meeting with that no-good Knave again, have you? Cause I told you before, Jack is a scabber."

She perked up brightly at the mention of Jack but, despite the fact that she _was _in Newsieland, David referred to him as a 'Knave', whatever that was. And, unless 'Knave' is 'Cowboy' in bunny language, he wasn't the Jack she was looking for. Instead, she bristled at being mistaken for Sarah. She opened her mouth to argue that she was _not _Sarah when she changed her mind and shook her head instead. She was pretty sure that any argument she began would only be pointless. "Whatever you say, David."

David nodded. "Good," he said before withdrawing his pocket watch from his trouser pockets. He yelped audibly when he saw the time and looked back up at Stress. "Sarah, I'm quite late and I have seemed to misplace my button-down shirt and my brown hat," he said and Stress chose that moment to adopt an innocent expression – she had left them floating in her ocean of tears, _whoops_. "So, run along, and fetch me some more." He pointed to the house.

Stress looked behind her, glancing at the house, before turning back to him. _Is he really expecting me to get it for him? I'm not his slave. _She was going to tell him so when she realized that this was a once-in-a- lifetime experience. How often had she been invited into the house of a _hopping _newsie? That's right. None. So, with an exaggerated sigh and a roll of her eyes, Stress opened the gate to the white picket fence and began to head down the walkway. She dared a look behind her and saw that David was resting against the white picket fence. _Lazy_.

Once she was inside the house, Stress found herself gaping at all the expensive and priceless things that David had inside. "My, they really did underestimate how much money a newsie could pull in," she said and picked up a golden cigarette case from what had to be the dinner table. However, when she opened the case, there were not cigarettes inside – it was a golden _carrot _case. "Ha," she laughed to herself, "it's a 24 _karat _case." No, she really wasn't above such bad puns.

She placed the golden case back down on the table and went off in search of the bunny's clothes. There was a flight of stairs at the end of the hallway she was in so she took them. Once she had made it upstairs, Stress began to open various doors. It was the third door that she opened that led to David's bedroom; the blown up poster of Bryan Denton that hung overhead told her as much. Disregarding the utter creepiness that she felt entering his private room, she headed straight to the closet. She knew it was the closet because, cleverly, it was marked as such with big, bold letters: **CLOSET**.

Inside the closet, she found a large stack of freshly laundered blue button-down shirts. Right next to that pile was an arrangement of brown newsboy caps. Shaking her head at the sight, Stress just grabbed one each from the piles and closed the closet door. Then she began to head out of David's room.

Once she was downstairs again, Stress took the same way out that she had taken in. In order to make her way back to the front door, she had to pass the dinner table again. But, when she went past it, the golden case was gone. Instead, a glass bottle, filled with the same red liquid as the polite bottle from earlier, had taken it's place.

Stress placed the shirt and cap down on the table and picked the bottle up. "This one doesn't say '_drink me, please_' like the other bottle did but, hell, am I thirsty. And, besides, I hate being so short. Maybe this will make me big again." When she finished talking herself into drinking the bottle – surprisingly, it didn't take herself very long to do that; people just don't learn or, at least, Stress doesn't – she lifted the glass to her lips and downed the entire bottle's contents. "Yuck," she said and tossed the bottle aside, "that stuff is nasty." She stuck her tongue out and, using her finger, tried to brush it. Nevertheless, the aftertaste of the liquid remained. "Well, at least nothing weird happened this time."

Just as those words were out of her mouth, she felt a familiar tingle in her tummy. "Guess I spoke too soon," she said as she watched her arms stretch out, then her legs and, lastly, her torso. She had grown ten times her size – again.

Considering she was inside a bunny's home when she grew, it was no wonder that she was now trapped. And, with her gigantic foot pressed against the door, no one could come inside the house either.

Outside of the house, still resting against the picket fence, David was beginning to get a bit nervous. "What is taking Sarah so long to get me my shirt and my hat?" he asked before opening the fence's gate and _hopping_ towards the house. Once he reached the door, he tried to jiggle it open. However, since we know that Stress was presently stuck against the door, he could not open the door no matter how hard he tried. "What is going o—Aaahhh!" David, who had decided to peek inside the window of his home to find out just _why_ the door wouldn't open, screamed when turned to the side. Stress' giant arm had just poked itself out of the window and was resting on top of the ground.

David took a few _hops_ backward, away from the arm. "Snipeshooter!"

A short and stout boy of about twelve popped his head out from behind the back of the house. "What's the matter, boss?" he asked, his teeth clamped tight on the stub of a cigar, as he approached the agitated bunny.

David placed his hands on his hips. "Snipes, did you steal Racetrack's cigars again?" he questioned, forgetting about the giant arm for a moment.

"Nope. I found these stogies for a quarter somewhere," he answered, ashing the cigar next to one of David's boots.

David nodded before pointing towards the arm. "Alright then, Snipes. But , can you tell me what this exactly is?"

Snipeshooter followed David's point and eyed the curve of the arm. "Why, boss, that looks like an arm to me."

"Yeah, and who's ever seen an arm that big before?"

Snipeshooter shrugged his shoulders, still puffing on the end of his cigar. "No one, I'm sure, but that's still an arm there, boss."

David shook his head and _hopped _once for emphasis. "Well I can't have a giant arm sticking out of my window. Go get rid of it."

"Me, boss?" Snipes asked as he took one last drag off of his cigar and tossed it to the ground.

"Yes, you. You aren't afraid, are you, Snipeshooter?"

It was Snipeshooter's turn to shake his head. "I'm not afraid, boss, but I'll tell ya – I'm too tired to remove such an arm from a window. Big poker game with the fellas last night, you know how it is."

"Hey, guys. What's going on here?" asked a short dark boy as he walked past the white picket fence, conveniently carrying a ladder over his shoulder.

"Boots, thank goodness for you. Put that ladder up against the house over here," David instructed.

Boots shrugged and, while still carrying his ladder, opened the gate and approached the house. "Hey, Dave? Is that an arm?" he asked as he placed the ladder up against the white house. He had just noticed Stress' giant arm sticking out of the window.

Stress, who had heard everything that had happened while she was stuck in the house, thumped the ground outside, scaring the two boys and one bunny. "Get me out of here," she hollered.

While visibly shaken at the mini-earthquake that her fist had caused, none of the three of them paid her any mind. "Okay, Boots, what I need you to do is climb up that ladder, get inside the chimney and shimmie down to see who's in my house."

Boots thought about it for a second; his dark eyes went from the arm, to the ladder and back to the arm before he nodded. "Sure, Dave." He shrugged his shoulders and scurried up the ladder.

"I don't think so," yelled Stress as she positioned her right foot just inside the bottom part of the chimney. Once she felt Boots right above her tennis shoe, she kicked.

"Aaaahhh," Boots yelled as he went soaring into the air and landed just outside the picket fence.

Snipeshooter ran over to the picket fence while David _hopped _over just as quickly. "Boots are you alright?"

Boots sat on the ground, a dazed look on his face. "I don't know. I went down the chimney just like Dave asked but once I got down low something kicked me and up I went."

David shook his head and looked sorrowfully back at the giant arm. "Well, in that case, I guess there is only one thing we can do. We're going to have to burn down the house."

While Snipeshooter and Boots nodded their agreement, Stress, who had heard the next step in their plan, banged the ground again with her fist. "Oh, no you don't. You are not going to burn down this house while I'm stuck inside."

But, like before, the two boys and the one bunny ignored her shouts. David took a handful of flammable pebbles out of his pockets and gave a few each to Snipeshooter and Boots. Then the three of them walked forward to the window – well two of them did, David _hopped _– and tossed the pebbles in through the open window.

"Ouch. Stop that," Stress yelled as the pebbles hit her arm and, if the boys actually got a pebble to land inside the house, her belly. However, she stopped yelling when she noticed that, rather than start a fire, the pebbles turned into mini-cupcakes once they landed on the floor. She maneuvered the one hand that was still inside the house over to where a few cupcakes sat. Picking them up, she tossed them inside her mouth and swallowed. _Finally._ _I've gotten rid of that bad aftertaste from that other bottle._

And that's when it happened again. All at once she began to shrink until she was only barely a few inches tall. When she noticed her shrunken state, Stress hurriedly ran to the back part of the house and exited through the back door. She didn't want to be around when they noticed that they had tried burned down the house for no reason.


	6. I know a sucky height when I've been it

Author's Note: _I don't really have anything to say except here's the next chapter of Curiouser and Curiouser. Me and my sister went out to a new pizza place today and, I guess it didn't agree with us, because she just started to puke and I'm seriously not too far behind. I decided to work on some fic today to feel better but, not surprisingly, I still feel like ubercrap. I'm going to post this and work on _Diabo_. I wasn't sure if I was going to put it on hold for a bit, to make way for _Ballad of the Street Rat_, but I figure I would at least give myself another week on that. _

Disclaimer: _No, I do not own Disney's live action musical: _Newsies. _No, I do not own Lewis Carroll's novel, _Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland, _nor Disney's cartoon version of _Alice in Wonderland_. I own Stress, her cat Ashes and her fixation with _hopping _newsies_.

_-- _

_Curiouser and Curiouser _

June 24, 2006

_Stress has accidentally stumbled into the wonderful world of Newsieland.  
Will she ever get back home to New Jersey? Not if the Queen of New York has her way._

--

Due to her small height, it took a bit before she was far enough away from David's house for her to stop running. She almost expected him to come _hopping _her way any minute then, prepared to squish her for causing him to burn down his house. Even after the white building was behind her and she was lost in the field of grass that was his backyard, Stress continued to run. As she went she stumbled and tripped over the boulder-sized pebbles and the massive dirt piles in the way. Though she felt as if she had just fallen into a scene from 'Honey, I shrunk the kids' – and was expecting (and fearing) any giant ants – Stress kept going, only slightly moaning about her fate. "Why did I have to go and drink that stuff in David's house and then gobble up those cupcakes? Now I'm not even as tall as a blade of grass."

And she wasn't. As she stopped to catch her breath, she leaned against a single blade of grass that was easily an inch taller than she was. In her frustration, Stress swatted at the grass and was surprised when the blade came back and knocked her on her rear. She began to grumble from her position in the dirt but stopped when, as she looked upward, she saw a whole mess of thick smoke. Confused, she scratched her head. "Now, I know that I've gone far enough away from David's house that I _should not _be seeing the fire's smoke," she said to herself and pulled herself up to her feet.

Quickly swiping the dirt that had covered the seat of her blue jeans, Stress took off in the direction of the smoke. The closer she got to the smoke, the more aware she was that there was not a giant white house – David's house – in front of her. _At least I was getting away from his home_, she thought just as she exited a thick patch of crabgrass. She entered a brief clearing and that's when she came face to face with the _thing _responsible for producing the smoke.

It was a strange combination of a caterpillar and a boy. The face was distinctly human but the excess of arms and green colored skin told her he – she assumed it was a he – was not human. He had hair, black hair that seemed to suffer eternal hat-hair, and wore a plaid vest. His tubular-shaped boy was resting on a rather large mushroom and he was busy smoking a very large cigar.

Stress stared in surprise at the creature. He hadn't noticed her arrival and she wasn't sure if she should alert him to her presence or just back away slowly. But then she took another look at him and – despite all the weirdness she had experienced since landing in Newsieland – couldn't help but find out what exactly a boy/caterpillar hybrid was doing in David's backyard.

"Excuse me, but who are you?" Not the most tactful of introductions but Stress was curious and, when curious, she lost all pretense of tact.

The boy/caterpillar turned in her direction and, after sizing her up – which didn't take long considering her size consisted of only three inches – he inhaled on his large cigar. "I happen to be Racetrack the Caterpillar. Who are you?"

"To be perfectly honest with you Race – can I call you Race? – I'm not too sure right now," Stress confessed as she took a seat on the acorn that lay at the base of his mushroom.

Racetrack took another puff on his cigar and, when he exhaled, he breathed out an orange smoke ring. "Well, let me tell you, if you don't know, I sure as hell don't know."

Stress watched in amazement as his orange smoke ring wafted over his head before she returned her eyes to Racetrack's rather watery ones. "I know who I was when I woke up this morning but I've definitely been changed a few times since then."

"And what does that mean?"

Stress shrugged. "It means exactly what I said. Up until this morning, I've always been the same size – except for that growth spurt back in seventh grade – but now, look at me. I've been so many different sizes today that I'm so confused."

"Oh," Racetrack commented before taking another pull off his cigar. This time, when he exhaled, he blew out three blue smoke rings, all intertwined. They began the journey upward to join the singular orange one floating above his head.

"I hate change," Stress admitted as she leapt up and, before the rings could float any higher, poked her pointer finger through the holes, "and all there has been in this place is change, change, change. If you were to change – into a butterfly, maybe – wouldn't you get all PMS-y?"

The look Racetrack gave her told her that he didn't think too much of her idea. "No," he said, shortly. He seemed annoyed that his blue rings were now a smoky jumble.

Stress ignored the attitude the caterpillar seemed to give. "Well, I know that I am. I just want to be a fixed size, one and for all."

Racetrack rolled his eyes and, leaning downward from his mushroom, he blew green smoke into her face. "What size do you want to be?"

She waved the smoke out of her face before thinking about his question. She had thought he would have stopped listening to her. "I guess I would like to be a little taller," she answered, finally. "Three inches is such a sucky height to be."

At her answer, Racetrack's face lost its green caterpillar tint as it burned a furious shade of red. "I'll have you know," he fumed, "that I am _exactly _three inches high and I—" he began but was interrupted when he was surrounding by a big puff of purple smoke, more than his cigar could ever allow. When the smoke cleared, Racetrack was gone. All that was left on the mushroom was a spent cigar butt.

Stress was alarmed at his sudden disappearing act. "Race? Racetrack? Hey, Mr. Caterpillar, where did you go?" she called as she began to look around for him. He was nowhere around.

"Hey, kid." The nasally voice was coming from above her.

Stress looked upward and smiled when she saw that Racetrack hadn't fully disappeared; he had transformed into a green and purple plaid colored butterfly. "How do you feel, now, Butterfly Race? Do you like the change?"

Race ignored the flippant way in which Stress called out to him. Instead, he flapped one of his wings downward in the direction of the mushroom he had been resting on. "One side will make you taller. The other side will make you smaller."

"What? Huh? What are you going on about, Butterfly Race? One side of what?"

Even on his newly changed form Racetrack was able to smirk. "The mushroom, genius. What did you think I was doing, just sitting on the mushroom?"

Stress scratched her head. "Yeah, kinda. If you weren't sitting on the mushroom, what were you doing?"

"Guarding it, obviously. That's a special mushroom, remember? Everything's got a purpose, even here in Newsieland," he said and, with that, flew away, flapping his plaid wings as he went.

When she was all on her own again, Stress began to talk to herself. "Alright, if this mushroom is so damn important, I guess I better take some of it." She walked over to the side nearest to her and broke off a liberal chunk of the mushroom. Then she walked over to the other side and did the same thing. As she walked around the fungus, she continued to speak out loud. "Of course it would have to be mushrooms. I absolutely _despise _mushrooms." But, of course, she hated being only three inches – regardless of what a great height Racetrack thought it was – more. She wrinkled her nose and took a tiny nibble from the mushroom chunk she held in her left hand.

She waited a moment and let out a cheer when she slowly, but surely, began to grow. She went from three inches to three feet before stopping. She took a smaller nibble from the mushroom and grew another two feet. For the last remaining seven inches, Stress placed a tentative lick against the mushroom. When she was done, she was, once again, her normal height.

_I better hold onto these. They might be worth something when I get back home_, she thought as she put one mushroom in her right hand back pocket and the other in her left hand back pocket. She was very careful not to mix up the 'taller' and 'smaller' shrooms.

Now that she was her normal size again she looked around. She had left the dirty street that she had initially arrived on, and could also make out the fiery white building that belonged to David. "I guess they continued to try to burn it down, after all," she thought and turned away from that direction. She wasn't going back that way at all.

However, once she spun around, she saw that there was another house not too far off in the distance. It was just as big as David's house but was bright pink. With a smile, Stress began to head in that direction.


	7. Pepper makes us sneeze

Author's Note: _Gah, it's much harder to write this from fresh rather than have a chapter that I wrote years ago to base an updated version on. So, if this chapter sucks, it's because I lost 'teh funnie'. Let me know what you think. I'm a little hesitant to post, now. Also, there will be a longer time between updates since I have to make the story up now – that, and I have about 7 stories I'm working on. Woot._

Disclaimer: _No, I do not own Disney's live action musical: _Newsies. _No, I do not own Lewis Carroll's novel, _Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland, _nor Disney's cartoon version of _Alice in Wonderland_. I own Stress, her cat Ashes and her fixation with _hopping _newsies_.

_-- _

_Curiouser_ _and Curiouser _

July 2, 2006

_Stress has accidentally stumbled into the wonderful world of Newsieland.  
Will she ever get back home to New Jersey? Not if the Queen of New York_ _has her way._

--

_Crash_. _Crash._ _Bang!_ The pink house was still a ways away when Stress heard a series of crashes followed by a bang. She had no doubt about it, though; the sounds were coming from her destination.

Obviously put off by the destructive din, Stress paused just off from the walkway. She shielded her eyes with her hands and tried to get a good look at the hot pink monstrosity. The glare of the house diminished slightly, Stress saw a wooden sign; the sign read: _Firecracker's House of Salt - home of the great Duchess of Newsieland, Medda. _She squinted. The name 'Medda' had been crossed out with a marker and the name 'Bookie' was written right above it.

_Firecracker?_ _Salt? Duchess? Medda? Bookie?_

Crash or no crash, Stress was going in. How could she resist? At least the pink was explained. If Medda Larkson, the 'Swedish Meadowlark', lived here at one time, it would make sense that the house be the most unattractive shade of pink possible.

She approached the house and, as she went up the walkway, noticed that there was another person there. It was a boy, near ten or so, with greasy brown hair and a lost expression on his face. He was sitting on a crate just outside the pink house; his back was to the door so that he would not have to see the garishness of it all.

Stress stopped a few steps away from the porch. "Hello?"

The boy didn't acknowledge her.

Puzzled, she walked in front of him and waved her hands in front of his eyes. He didn't move.

She shrugged and, rather than waste her time with the boy-statue, reached up to knock on the great pink door. Once her fist was made, however, the boy spoke.

"It's no use knocking."

Stress dropped her hand. "What?"

"I said, there's no use in knocking on the door. The only one that would hear you is me, and I'm already on this side." He was speaking but the only thing that was moving was his mouth; he kept on his crate, staring straight ahead.

She was even more confused, now. "Does that mean there is no one inside, kid?"

"Les."

"Les?" she asked, trying not to get close to the boy. He was beginning to creep her out.

"Oh, they're inside, alright. But they can't hear you."

"Well, then, I'll just go inside," she said.

He still didn't respond other than with words; his vacantness was really eerie. "Okay, just don't say I didn't warn you. As for me, I think I'll just stay here." And then he went as silent and still as he was when she first arrived.

Shaking her head at the exchange she had just held with Les, Stress reached out for the doorknob. She still wanted to get inside, more now than ever. Her curiosity _always _got the better of her.

Once she turned the door and stepped inside, she was struck by the color of the walls. While the outside of the house was a hot pink color, the color inside was bright purple. For a moment, Stress wished she would have brought her sunglasses with her.

She continued to walk inside, praying that the rest of the house wasn't so tackily decorated. When she heard another crash, she hurried forward. Now, it's never good to go running into a house in a place as strange as Newsieland _– _especially if you're running _towards_ a crash _– _but, by now, we know Stress has no common sense.

When she stopped, she found that she was in the kitchen of the house. There was a girl, sitting at the table, with an elaborate tiara sitting atop her short brown hair, even though she was wearing a button-down shirt and slacks; she was hunched over a book and scribbling furiously. A second girl, with a head of wild red hair, was shaking two glass shakers over a pot on the stove. Neither noticed her entry.

Stress tapped the girl at the table. "Excuse me?"

She looked up. "Hello."

"Who are you?" Stress still needed to learn some tact.

The girl looked confused for a moment before she smiled. "Why I'm Bookie, of course _– _except now I'm also the Great Duchess of Newsieland." When Stress didn't say anything in reply, Bookie shrugged her shoulders and turned back to her writing.

Stress just stared at the girl. She had gone back to making notes in her ledger and was now ignoring her intruder. Stress shook her head and tapped the girl on her shoulder again. Bookie looked up. "Yes?"

"Are you really the Duchess?" Stress tried to ask the question respectfully - it didn't work. Instead, she sounded as if she really didn't believe that his petite gambler was royalty. _Even in Newsieland..._

Turning back to her numbers, Bookie nodded. "Yup."

"And, since you call yourself 'Bookie', I take it that you are, indeed, a bookie?" She knew she sounded slow but she was having a hard time comprehending this. _A bookie that's the Duchess – no crazier than a newsie who is a rabbit, I guess or a cigar-smoking caterpillar. At least she doesn't hop or hasn't transformed into a prophetic butterfly – yet. Who knows, maybe I've met some semi-sane people now. _She crossed her fingers behind her back. _Here's hoping. _

"That's right," the Duchess replied, writing something down with a pencil before crossing it out. Briefly, Stress peeked over her shoulder to see what she was writing: _Queen Rae - four cookies. King Spot - twelve cookies. _The twelve had been crossed out and now said _fourteen cookies_. _Lent him a margin of two snicker doodles... _Stress decided not to ask. She was still trying to figure out the whole 'Duchess' thing.

"If you don't mind me asking, then," – the red-headed chef snorted from her place at the stove but Bookie just placed her pencil down and looked back up at Stress – "how did a bookie become Duchess of Newsieland."

The girl shrugged her shoulders; her short brown hair barely moved with the gesture. "Simple. I won a bet."

Another snort came from the chef but Stress ignored her. "A bet?"

"A bet. Queen of New York and I, we made a bet. She was out of cookies, so she bet me a royal title. I won and the Queen kicked Medda out," the Duchess said proudly.

And that's when the chef picked up two large glass shakers and hurried over to the pair of girls. "Salt!" she hollered and shook her shookers – er, shakers. Thin, white grains of salt sprinkled down upon the heads of Stress and Bookie for a few brief moments before the crazy red-head echoed her cry – "Salt!" – and stopped shaking her shakers. Without another word she hurried back into her kitchen. Bookie acted like nothing happened, turning back to her book without so much as brushing the salt out of her hair.

Stress uncrossed her fingers. There was no need to keep them crossed now; these people were just as looney as the others. "Salt?" she asked out loud.

Bookie paid no attention to Stress's question at first. It was when she finally finished playing around with her numbers that she said, "What?"

Stress jerked her thumb into the kitchen. "Salt?"

That time the chef turned around again and rushed back over. "Salt!" she cried and shook her shakers maniacally for the second time. And, just like before, she repeated herself –

"Salt!" – before retreating to the stove.

Bookie smiled this time. "That's Firecracker. She likes salt."

_Well, that's an understatement_, Stress thought but kept it to herself; while Bookie was friendly even if she was a gambler, Firecracker seemed to like her salt a little _too _much. So, rather than say anything that would warrant another salt shower, Stress just nodded.

Bookie nodded in return.

Firecracker snorted again as she added more salt to whatever it was she was cooking.

Then one of those awkward silences crept up on the trio. You know, the sort that appear when three people are in a room together but have _nothing _to say to one another. Yeah, one of those.

Stress put her hands in her pockets and, while still nodding, looked around the inside of the house. Besides the intense purple walls that she noticed upon entering, there was not much else to see. "So," she began, trying to break up that awkward silence, "why salt?" Almost immediately she flinched. She hadn't meant to mention the condiment again; it had just slipped out.

To her surprise, Firecracker remained at her place in the kitchen. Bookie just shrugged her shoulders. "Because pepper makes us sneeze." She said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Oh." Her hands still in her pockets, curiosity still nagging at her, she nodded over to the kitchen. "What is she cooking that needs all that salt?" she asked as Firecracker dumped another round of salt into the giant pot.

Bookie shrugged. "Why don't you go see for yourself? Hey," she said, and Stress paused, "want to make a bet as to what's inside?" the gambler asked, petting her ledger fondly.

"Um, that's okay," Stress replied. She wasn't sure what type of money the people in Newsieland played with -- and, besides, she was fresh out of cookies. Then, when Bookie re-opened her ledger and went back to her figures, Stress walked into the kitchen. She tip-toed quietly, trying not to agitate the cook.

When she got next to Firecracker, she looked inside the large brass pot. But, when she saw the contents, all she could see was white. "What _are _you cooking?"

Firecracker picked up one of her shakers and sprinkled more salt into the pot. "Salt." _I should have known_. "Want some?"

The idea of eating even one spoonful of pure salt was enough to turn her stomach. "No thanks," she said, and began to back out of the kitchen. "I just remembered, I have to go find a rabbit."

Firecracker shrugged and added some more salt to her pot. "Suit yourself. More for me." She went to add more salt to her 'salt' when she noticed that one of the glass shakers was empty. Without a look behind her, she tossed the shaker. It landed with a loud _crash_ right next to Stress. She shrieked and, without another word, went running from the house.


	8. Is it possible to grow cats' ears?

Author's Note: _Let's just forget that it's been two months to the day that I last touched this. I've been working so much on my other stories that some of the more difficult ones (humor is hard, yo) got pushed to the back burner. Hopefully I'll be able to get back to this and _Demons_, soon. Anywho, enjoy this chapter. _

_I want to dedicate this chapter to the loverly Bittah! If it wasn't for her insistence that I actually update this story again, I don't know when it would have been done. And, considering she had to prod me like four times before I opened the word file, I think she deserves special recognition :)_

Disclaimer: _No, I do not own Disney's live action musical: _Newsies. _No, I do not own Lewis Carroll's novel, _Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland, _nor Disney's cartoon version of _Alice in Wonderland_. I own Stress, her cat Ashes and her fixation with _hopping _newsies_.

_-- _

_Curiouser_ _and Curiouser _

September 2, 2006

_Stress has accidentally stumbled into the wonderful world of Newsieland.  
Will she ever get back home to New Jersey? Not if the Queen of New York_ _has her way._

--

Stress didn't stop running until she had left the pink house far behind her. Every time she thought that she had gotten far enough away, she heard the clear yell of 'salt' from right behind her and she ran even faster. She had the misfortune of eating a spoonful of plain salt once – it's only to be expected when salt and sugar are both grainy, white powders and Mary Poppins said that swallowing a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down; come on, someone else _must_ have made that mistake, too – and was not eager to relive the experience.

Once she was out of breath, Stress paused and looked over her shoulder. The horrid pink house was no longer in sight. She sighed out of relief. "Thank God."

"What are you thanking the Big Guy for?"

Stress let out a tiny shriek of surprise. She had thought that she was alone again but, evidently, she was not. She spun on her heel. There, across the street – for, after fleeing from Bookie (the Great Duchess of Newsieland), she had found her way back onto the main street; the street, ironically enough, looked just like the painted backdrops of low-budget Disney musicals except they were real and not painted on at all – sat a girl, lounging about on a rather high branch in a rather tall tree.

At first glance, the girl was pretty normal looking. She was on the shorter side with long and wavy dark hair. Her stormy green eyes were almost dancing with amusement at Stress's yell. She was wearing a white pinstriped shirt, covered in grass stains, and faded black slacks. Overall, she looked very much like most of the girls that Stress had encountered in Newsieland.

That is, except for two features: she had two perky, black cats' ears and a grin that would put GE out of business it was so big and bright.

At first sight, Stress knew something was different about this girl. Her strange appearance coupled with the way she had just popped out screamed out that something was weird. But, regardless of any common sense, Stress crossed the street. "Pardon?"

"I said, what are you thanking the Big Guy for?"

"The…Big Guy?"

"Yeah. You said 'thank God'. What for?"

Stress shook her head. "I was running away from this crazy pink house and I was glad that I got far enough away."

The girl/cat/thing nodded knowingly. "You got off easy there, missy. You would have been shouting 'Hallelujah' if you would have stopped by that old place when Medda was still living there. Just be glad that you only met Bookie."

"Yeah…wait a minute. Who are you?" Stress asked, pointing at her. For a moment she had forgotten to be wary of anyone she came across in Newsieland. But after almost drowning in saline, getting burnt alive and being offered a healthy – unhealthy, really – portion of _salt_, she was beginning to grow a _smidge _of sense. She took a step away. "I mean – you got cats' ears."

The girl's grin, if possible, grew wider. One of her hands, furless – from where Stress was standing, it seemed like the only cat-like features that girl had were her ears and that odd, almost Cheshire Cat-like grin – reached up and tweaked her ear. "Well, what did you expect? I'm from Cheshire."

"And?"

"So, wouldn't that make me a Cheshire Cat?" She looked like certain that what she was saying was making perfect sense that, for a second, Stress believed her.

"I gues— Actually, no I don't see how. Were you born with those ears?" Then reality set in and, like many times before, Stress was confused.

"No. They grew."

"You _grew _cats' ears? How?"

The grin was almost mocking Stress; it was joined by a jolly laugh. Stress felt that, if she weren't such a klutz – as evidenced by her earlier attempt (and failure) at climbing the glass table when she first arrived in Newsieland – she would climb that tree and maybe smack that grin off the girl/cat's face.

"Well," the girl/cat/thing countered, "you grow hair. How do you do it?"

Stress opened her mouth to answer and closed it almost right away. _I should know this. I learned this in high school. _But the answer would not come to her. "I don't know."

"There you go." She seemed so sure of herself. "By the by, my name is Timber. And you?"

"Stress."

"Pity."

Stress glanced up at her. "I'm sorry?"

Timber laughed again. "Honey, you should be."

Stress's mouth dropped open in surprise. She had just been _pwn_'_d_ by a girl/cat/thing named Timber! But, before she could say anything in response, the girl began to fade. Sure she was just seeing things – a trick of the light, you know – Stress rubbed her green eyes frantically before opening them wide and staring at the tree again. Nope, it was definitely not a trick. The girl was fading. Not before long, the only thing that remained was the cheeky grin.

She was so taken aback by the girl's disappearance that, when the girl re-appeared in another tree – _is that why she is called Timber? – _on the other side of the street, Stress did not notice.

"Hey, there, girlie?"

She screamed again, feeling all the dumber for letting this girl/cat/thing catch her off guard for the second time. When she had composed herself, she whirled around. "What?"

The grin was back. "Are you all there?"

Panic hit Stress just then. What did Timber mean, 'all there'? Was she disappearing, too? She glanced down quickly, looking at her front before looking over her shoulder and studying her rear. As far as she could see, nothing was missing. "Looks like it to me."

"Are you sure?" Timber asked, laughing again she spoke. "Cause, I tell you, if you were, you wouldn't be here."

"I don't get it."

Timber paused to scratch one of her ears. Stress was amazed at how natural the girl seemed to be with those furry ears, the way they flicked and moved. In a fit of irrational jealousy, she wanted ears like that. Then she remembered that she had her own cat at home, Ashes, and why would she need cats' ears of her own when she had his?

"Let me put it this way, girlie," Timber said, ripping Stress out of dreams of what would _she _look like with Ashes' grey, fuzzy ears superimposed on her head, "have you met anyone here yet that seemed, I don't know, normal?"

Stress thought back to the beginning of her adventure. First she had met David, the _hopping _newsboy. _Nope, definitely not normal._ Then there had been those three girls: Zippy, Gimmick & Wish, and their _odd _caucus race. _That would be a no to them, too. _After that she had met up with David again and his two associates, Boots and Snipeshooter. _They tried to burn down a house with _me _inside it. Not normal. _Then there had been Racetrack, the caterpillar and then butterfly. _He was a boy/bug hybrid for goodness sake – and he smoked a cigar! How many caterpillars smoke cigars? _The pink house had been weird enough, especially that odd door boy, Les, but a gambling duchess and a cook who only cooks salt? _Yup, a zero on the Normal-o-meter._ And, lastly, she was standing with a girl who was part girl, part cat and all smile. By jove, Timber was right.

"No, I can honestly say that I have not."

"And that's because we're not all here." Timber was now disappearing again. "You may notice that I'm not all here myself…"

This time Stress was more prepared. Rather than let Timber reappear somewhere else and scare her again, she spun around and stared at the first tree expectantly. But Timber did not reappear there.

Suddenly, she felt a tap on the back of her shoulder and, predictably, she screamed again. Timber was no longer sitting on a limb; the girl/cat/thing was _floating _behind Stress, sitting cross-legged about seven feet above the ground. She was still grinning.

Stress crossed her arms over her chest. "You seem to know so much about this place. How do I get out of here?"

Timber mimicked Stress' gesture. "Can't tell you that."

"Why not?"

"Don't know how…but the Mad Patch might."

Stress was not too sure that she heard that right. "The Mad…Patch?"

Timber nodded. "Yup. The Mad Patch. Lives right on down this street with his buddy, the March Hair. They've been in Newsieland almost as long as the King and Queen of New York. If anybody can help you, it's probably them."

For once, Stress felt grateful toward one of the loonies of Newsieland. Was it possible that Timber was actually _helping _her? "Wow, thanks. I appreciate it."

The girl/cat/thing was disappearing again. As she slowly faded away, her grin widened. When nothing was left of her but the grin, she laughed. "Don't, girlie. They're just as _off_ as the rest of us all." And then, with a _pop, _and what could only be described as an evil laugh, Timber was gone.

Stress just shrugged. She should have known better.


	9. The Mad… Patch? March… Hair? Oy vey

Author's Note: _Okay, I know it's been like forever and a day since I even glanced in the direction of this story but I made a deal with Bittah (love) and, as I intend to uphold my end of the bargain, here is the first of many new chapters of Curiouser and Curiouser. It's a little shorter than I wanted but that's only because if I started the next part (which promises to be quite amusing) it would never end._

_Anywho, read, enjoy (review)… all that good stuff. Have a good holiday to those who celebrate and keep an eye out on this story. More is coming… woot. Also, the story told in this chapter is from Jokefile and it amused the hell out of me. I just had to share it :)_

Disclaimer: _No, I do not own Disney's live action musical: _Newsies. _No, I do not own Lewis Carroll's novel, _Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland, _nor Disney's cartoon version of _Alice in Wonderland_. I own Stress, her cat Ashes and her fixation with _hopping _newsies_.

_-- _

_Curiouser_ _and Curiouser _

December 23, 2006

_Stress has accidentally stumbled into the wonderful world of Newsieland.  
Will she ever get back home to New Jersey? Not if the Queen of New York_ _has her way._

--

Stress waited for a few minutes, anxious to see if Timber would return. She would not put it past the girl/cat/thing to come back with some other snarky reply and less-than-helpful advice. When she did not, she began to head down the street. At the very least, Timber had said that there were some people that could aid her in escaping from Newsieland. Now, what did she call them?

_The Mad… Patch? March… Hair? Oy vey. _

She shook her head and, figuring that if they could help her, it would be worth it, she continued walking. Just like it had been since she arrived in this strange universe – an alternate universe, if you will – she was alone on an empty street. There were various houses that dotted the street but each looked as if it belonged in scenery; surely no one actually _lived _in any of them.

In fact, from where she was, there only seemed to be one real, lived-in house. But, then again, she probably thought so because it was the only house in the vicinity that had smoke exiting from the over-sized chimney stack that protruded from it's cock-eyed roof. Every other house had the air of being made out of cardboard.

Whether that house belonged to the Mad Patch or not, Stress decided that she would check it out. She did not think that anyone else she would meet there could be any weirder than those she had encountered already during her adventure through Newsieland.

She was wrong, of course. She just did not know it yet.

Stress approached the house – it was small and covered in large blue polka dots for some reason; almost as if the house had contracted some weird house-type of measles – and gingerly knocked on the door. No one answered, so she knocked again, louder.

This time, she heard a boisterous laugh ring out. But it was not coming from inside of the house – it was coming from the backyard.

She shrugged and started to walk around the side of the house. If no one was going to answer the door, she would hunt them down herself and ask them for her help. She was quickly losing her reserves about bothering people – as it was, she was sincerely beginning to think that at some point after leaving her house that morning, she had been run over and this whole thing was really the result of being doped up on morphine in some hospital while people waited to see if she was going to die (so they could harvest her organs, of course).

At least, that was her plan (and her reasoning for remaining so calm after everything she had seen). However, once she made it into the backyard, and saw the set up that was back there, she paused, her plan forgotten. It was that… strange.

There was a round table – a _huge _round table that could easily fit thirty people; in fact, there were exactly thirty seats and thirty set places at this table – that took up nearly the entire yard. There was a ginormous pot in the center of the table and empty glasses and plates littering the top. At each place, there was an upright glass, about halfway filled – or empty, depending on your outlook – with a dark brown liquid.

Instead of a tablecloth on the table, it was protected by a three inch thick layer of newspapers, in varying states of decay – some white, some yellow, some brown. There were a variety of strange dishes placed sporadically over the table – Stress thought she might have seen knockwurst, but then realized that she had no clue as to what knockwurst looked like – and, amidst this amazing table, with all these drink and all this food, there were two people.

Only two people. To fill up that whole table.

They were sitting besides each other, laughing loudly and clanking glasses together before swallowing the brown liquid. Stress watched as they downed a glass each before climbing out of their wooden seats, moving down two places, and starting this process again when their glasses were empty.

She remained a spectator, trying to get a good look at the two people before her. One of them was a boy – he had dirty blond hair, a big smile and a bright blue eye… _one_ bright blue eye; only one was visible as half of his face (the left side) was covered by a giant brown patch. The other person… thing?... was definitely female. She had brown hair, blue eyes and was wearing a cute little dress that matched the color of her eyes perfectly. However, just like Timber's strange catlike appearance, this girl had long, brown rabbit's ears with a tiny blue bow around the base of her ears.

Stress did a double take, checking to make sure that her eyes had not finally failed her but… no. First there had been a boy/caterpillar hybrid, then the girl/cat/thing and now, this: the March Hair. And, of course, the Mad Patch.

Just then, as she began to think – as they got up and swapped their places _again _– that there was _no _way that these two could help her, she was finally noticed. The boy saw her and jumped up.

"Hair, I do believe we have a visitor."

The girl followed suit, tossing her empty glass on the table.

"Well, Patchy, we should invite her to the celebration."

_Celebration?_

Before she could figure out just what they were celebrating, she had one of them on each side of her. Though Hair was nearly a foot smaller than her – and Stress had thought that she was short – she was just as strong as her counterpart and succeeded in helping the Mad Patch drag the stunned girl over to the table.

When Stress finally realized that she had basically been shanghaied in joining them, she saw that they had sat her in between the two of them – at a new place for each of them. The boy grabbed his glass in his hand and his companion did the same. Stress went to do the same when she realized that one of them had taken her glass, leaving her with none. She just dropped her empty hand.

The Mad Patch held his glass out. "To the celebration."

The March Hair did the same. "Ditto."

And then they both swallowed the contents of their glasses.

The Mad Patch smacked his lips together and tossed his glass onto the table. "Well, now that we've celebrated… who are you?"

Stress looked over her shoulder to check that he was talking to her – it was hard to tell where her was looking with that huge patch covering most of his face – and, when she was sure that he was, she swallowed. "Er… my name is Stress and—"

The March Hair's blue eyes lit up. "Stress? What an interesting name. Why, do you know that the name of 'stress' reminds me of a funny story? Would you like to hear it?"

The girl assumed that the March Hair was asking her because, to her left, she could see that the Mad Patch was already waiting for the story to begin; his eye was wide in anticipation, his mouth was hung open, and he had his chin rested on his palm. She nodded. "Sure."

"Okay. Here it goes:

Last week a friend of mine went to a seminar called '_Stress _and Disease by Dr. Nickolas Hall', an expert in psychobiology. He gave an example of a coping skill for job stress that I would like to share with you.

When you have had one of those _TAKE THIS JOB AND SHOVE IT_ days, try this – on your way home after work, stop at your pharmacy and go to the section where they have thermometers. You will need to purchase a rectal thermometer made by Q-Tip. Be very sure that you get this brand.

When you get home, lock your doors, draw the drapes, and disconnect the phone so you will not be disturbed during your therapy. Change to very comfortable clothing, such as a sweat suit and lie down on your bed. Open the package containing the thermometer and remove the thermometer and carefully place it on the bedside table so that it will not become chipped or broken.

Take the written material that accompanies the thermometer and as you read it you will notice in small print the statement that _every rectal thermometer made by Q-Tip is **PERSONALLY** tested_.

Now close your eyes and say out loud five times: _I am so glad that I do not work in quality control at the Q-Tip Company_."

The March Hair could barely finish her story, she was giggling so hard. However, when she was done – or at least, Stress assumed she was done; she was not trying to slow her laughter anymore – she looked over at the girl and nodded. "Well?"

Stress laughed then – as did the Mad Patch… loudly – but her laughter did not last long. Before long Stress adopted an expression that she was becoming all too familiar with during her stay in Newsieland. She was confused. "Wait a second… If this is Newsieland – and I'm going out on a limb here and assume that, since this is Newsieland, you guys are living in a time quite unlike mine… I mean, shouldn't you be in 1899, or something."

The March Hair was looking quite pleased with herself for her humorous little story and, because of that, had no idea to be wary of the way Stress's backwards thought reasoning process worked, just nodded. "Or something," she agreed, smiling widely.

"Then how do you guys know about Q-tip? A telephone? Job stress? Hell, how do you even know about butt thermometers?"

The March Hair looked stumped. She opened her mouth the reply but no sound came out. At least, no from her.

The Mad Patch stood up and slammed his hands on the table. "Move down, everyone. I need more sarsaparilla!"

And, instead of answering her question, both the Mad Patch and the March Hair rose up from their empty places and took new seats. They left an opening between them which Stress, still confused and a little bit slower than her hyper hosts, took. She wanted to ask them again but, on a second thought, decided against it.

Why? Simple. Her attention span was limited to about three second as it was and, when they took their new seats, she saw that she was facing the back of the ginormous pot that took up most of the table. And, on the back on the pot, there were air holes and a warning.

**Danger.** **Live Animal Inside. Beware of T.A.R.K.**

And, to Stress, learning what the hell the Mad Patch and the March Hair kept in that pot was more important than trying to figure out where the crazy rabbit-girl got her material from. At least, until they took her off the drip.


	10. What the devil is a TARK?

Author's Note: _And here's the next chapter. And, no, I could not resist throwing in a joke about T.A.R.K. Maybe one of these days I will actually get back to work on his adventures but, as long as I'm in the Newsies fandom, I plan to keep the horror that is T.A.R.K. alive. If you have no clue as to who he is, then you might not understand this scene, but that's alright (and easily remedied). Go check out the fic: T.A.R.K. It's old as hell and quite cheesy/horrible but it illustrates the origin of T.A.R.K. and why he should definitely be locked up in a pot ;) Well, Happy New Year everyone – more C&C coming in the New Year (including the upcoming Refuge scene, woot)._

Disclaimer: _No, I do not own Disney's live action musical: _Newsies. _No, I do not own Lewis Carroll's novel, _Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland, _nor Disney's cartoon version of _Alice in Wonderland_. I own Stress, her cat Ashes and her fixation with _hopping _newsies_.

_-- _

_Curiouser_ _and Curiouser _

December 30, 2006

_Stress has accidentally stumbled into the wonderful world of Newsieland.  
Will she ever get back home to New Jersey? Not if the Queen of New York_ _has her way._

--

"What the devil is a T.A.R.K.?" Stress asked, her attention solely on the pot. As if the creature inside knew that someone was asking about him – or heard her speak his name – he started to move, which meant that the pot that housed him did as well. It was a great metal thing, similar to a stew pot, if that stew pot could feed thirty people, and the clanking that followed was very loud. In fact, so loud that Stress did not hear the Mad Patch's response.

Not that she cared, really. He could have told her that T.A.R.K. was an acronym for Terrible Author's Resolute Killer and she would still have been nosy enough to lift that lid and peek inside. And that's exactly what she did.

The way Stress figured it, T.A.R.K. could not be that bad. Really, if the animal inside of the pot was _that _dangerous, well, then wouldn't the Mad Patch of the March Hair try to stop her before she reached for the lid? And, since they didn't, the thing was safe, right? Regardless of the warning.

She was curious and stood from her seat. The other two took that as a sign that they should swap seats again and got up with Stress. However, when they took a new set of seats – still leaving one between them for the girl – Stress climbed up atop of the gigantic table. The pot was in the center and she had to crawl a bit to get beside it.

Her hand paused a few inches away from the top of the lid when she thought she heard something coming from inside the pot. It sounded almost as if T.A.R.K. was… maybe… _growling _at her.

Stress jerked her hand back and looked at the two idiots who, while she had been moving towards the pot, had already finished off three glasses of the brown liquid. At present moment, the March Hair had climbed up on the table, just like Stress had, but, instead of following the girl, had lain down on her back, hanging her head over the edge of the table. The Mad Patch was trying to dribble the contents of one of the glasses into her waiting mouth. But to make it more difficult, he had pulled on a second oversized patch so that he could not see what he was doing. The result was that the drink was forming a puddle on her chin – which the rabbit-girl was attempting to lap up.

She shook her head. When Timber had said that the Mad Patch and the March Hair were just as off as the rest of them, she had not been kidding. "Umm… hello?"

The Mad Patch stopped slopping the sarsaparilla and took the patch off of his left eye – leaving only the one on his right eye. "Yes?"

The March Hair propped herself up on her elbows, looking surprised that Stress was still there. One of her brown ears flopped forward but a quick slap in its direction caused it to be as erect as its twin. "Yes?"

Stress just stared at the two of them. For a moment, something seemed wrong to her – and not just the fact that the March Hair was part girl, part hare or that the Mad Patch had a grin so wide that she was afraid it was going to split his head open. Forgetting about T.A.R.K. – sometimes it's nice to have such a short attention span; it was just a good thing that no one had anything shiny to distract the girl with – she pointed at the Mad Patch. "Wait a sec… wasn't your patch on the other eye?"

Still grinning goofily, he lifted his hand up to his face. When his fingers felt the patch that covered his right eye, he nodded and switched it to the other side. "Thanks."

That confused Stress (though that was not saying much – a lot of things confused her). "Do you even _need _your eye patch?"

"Of course, silly," he said, as if he was explaining something to a child. "I wouldn't be called the Mad Patch if I didn't have an eye patch, right?"

"Yeah," added the March Hair, as she climbed down from the table and flopped herself back in her seat. "You shouldn't really ask such obvious questions. Might make people think you're an idiot."

_Well isn't that the pot calling the kettle black, _Stress thought to herself, mildly offended at the March Hair's flippant remark. _Pot… _"Hey, can you guys tell me what's in that pot?"

The Mad Patch looked at her strangely. "Well, T.A.R.K., duh. Can't you read?"

Stress huffed. "Of course I can read. I just don't know what a T.A.R.K. is."

"Patchy already told you," the March Hair said before making the 'this-ones-a-lulu' crazy motion with her finger. "But if you don't believe him, then go see for yourself."

Not appreciating their taunting in the least – it was even more offensive for crazy people to assume that she's off her trolley; but, then again, if a crazy person thought she was nuts, wouldn't that negate and, therefore, confirm her sanity? _Ow_… _my head… too confusing…_ – Stress crawled as loudly and heavily as she could, banging her knees against the table, never minding the newsprint that began to stain her jeans. When she reached the pot, she lifted the lid with a flourish, the earlier growls a forgotten memory.

She poked her head inside the great pot and, at first, she did not see anything. She lowered her head in and, there, in the corner – oddly, the inside of the round pot was a square, complete with corners – was a little miniscule person, about three inches high.

Leaning almost all the ways in, her legs all but dangling as she lowered herself down, Stress, using her fingers as pincers, picked up the little person by the back of his shirt. She rocked backwards until her knees were back on the table before taking a good look at T.A.R.K.

He was dressed just like many of the inhabitants of Newsieland – old style newsboy-type clothes – but, remarkably had a head of bright red hair. And, despite being snatched out of his pot by (what he would see as) a giant, he was sleeping soundly.

"Oh, how cute," she cooed as she let the sleeping thing rest in her open palm. She turned back to the other two. "_This _is the dangerous animal that you keep locked in a huge pot? How cruel."

The Mad Patch shook his head warningly. "He may look cute when he's sleeping but just you wait until he's up."

Stress didn't believe him. Holding the little boy in her hand, she was reminded of her sister's Polly Pockets dolls – not the ones from the early 90's that were three inches high but the newer, flashier models that were as big at T.A.R.K. He was just so adorable that she wanted to see if he could talk. With her pointer finger, she poked him gently in the side. "Hey, buddy. Wake up…"

The small boy stretched out, almost mimicking the way that her cat stretched after a nice, long nap. Stress thought that he could not get any cuter – but that was before he opened his eyes and saw her big head staring down at her. There was a moment of confusion before her tiny captive figured out what was going on.

And then he bit her. Bit her right on the fleshy part of her palm, in between her pointer finger and her middle finger. And it hurt.

She was so surprised that she shook her hand, dropping the vicious little beast to the table. As soon as he landed, right next to her feet, he stood up and started to run. It might have been her imagination, but it seemed that the thing was getting bigger with every step.

Sucking at the bit of blood that he had produced with his bite, while, at the same time, ignoring the snickers that the Mad Patch and the March Hair were not even trying to hide, Stress scooped T.A.R.K. up and, as quickly as she could – she did not want to get bitten again – she tossed him back in his pot. With a quick slam of the lid, he was locked away.

He did not seem to like that; she could almost hear a tiny voice shouting, "Get the lead out of your pants, Gigantor," but she ignored it. T.A.R.K. began to rattle his pot again – so it _had_ been that tiny little thing that moved that massive metal pot – but Stress was annoyed. She kicked the side of the pot and the rattling stopped.

She whirled around and stared at the two who had watched the occurrence as if it were a show. "What the heck was that?"

While the Mad Patch continued to laugh, the March Hair looked as if Stress should have known better. "That was The Annoying Red-headed Kid. What did you expect?"

Which she should have. _Every _fan of _Newsies _should know about the horror that was The Annoying Red-headed Kid…

T.A.R.K…The Annoying Red-headed Kid… How had she missed that? "Are you kidding? You let me take that thing out of his pot. What were you thinking? Don't you know what kind of havoc he can cause?" Stress was hurriedly wiping her hands against her jeans, trying to get the T.A.R.K. germs off. And he had bitten her, too… Gross.

Both the Mad Patch and the March Hair were laughing at this point. "Why do you think we kept him in that anti-havoc pot? Wow, you really are slow. And I thought you just _looked_ dumb."

Stress glared as evilly as she could at them both as she stormed off of the table. "You two are very rude."

The March Hair responded by blowing a raspberry at Stress. The Mad Patch just thumbed his noise up at her.

She sighed. Sending Stress in the direction of their little Celebration must have been a joke on Timber's part. Really, how the heck were these two jokesters supposed to help her?


	11. Gum and Mirrors and Girls, OH MY

Author's Note: _And here's the next chapter. It took me forever to get it out, including two days of serious prodding from Bittah :) It actually deals with some of the plot (plot? In a parody? Surely not…) so… yeah. If it sucks, that's my excuse. Just humor me… my inspiration has decided to go on a vacation to Tahiti and left me all by my lonesome. It's so very sad…_

Disclaimer: _No, I do not own Disney's live action musical: _Newsies. _No, I do not own Lewis Carroll's novel, _Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland, _nor Disney's cartoon version of _Alice in Wonderland_. I own Stress, her cat Ashes and her fixation with _hopping _newsies_.

_-- _

_Curiouser_ _and Curiouser _

February 2, 2007

_Stress has accidentally stumbled into the wonderful world of Newsieland.  
Will she ever get back home to New Jersey? Not if the Queen of New York_ _has her way._

--

Without even a second look behind her, Stress continued to storm away until she made it back onto the street. It was the same street she had been walking down ever since her tears had swept her out of the small, claustrophobic room. She sighed. It had seemed like just a street to her before but, now that her only hope of help turned out to be those two idiots, it appeared to be a never-ending road of doom.

_I want to go home._

There was only one problem with that. She had no idea where home was. To be quite honest, she had no idea where Newsieland was either. Therefore, without having any idea of the exact placement of her starting location nor her eventual destination, Stress was stuck.

And, as she had just absently walked atop of a chewed up and spat out piece of red gum, she was stuck in more ways than one.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," she cried out loud when she noticed the stringy gobs of chewing gum that was hanging off the bottom of her (once-white, currently dust-coated) keds. Quite annoyed, Stress looked around for the person who had so rudely spat their gum out; it was fresh, so she figured that they should still be around for a good yelling at. But, alas, she was still alone.

Huffing, she slipped her foot out of her shoe and, while balancing on one foot like a flamingo, reached over to pick it up. Normally, after stepping in gum – which was a more common occurrence than some people might think – Stress would just wipe the sole of the shoe against the edge of a curb or in a spot of slick grass.

Another quick glance around her told the girl that there was no curb and there was no grass. She was still standing in the middle of the street, surrounded by dust, dirt and, on the sides, cobblestone. _Hmm… no._ _I don't think that'll work too well, _she thought to herself, her dirty shoe held out in front of her. _Wait? What's that? _

Not _too _far off in the distance, Stress saw a rather large tree. It was hidden behind a row of similar (fake) looking buildings but it was big enough that the bushy bit of it was protruding upward. She grinned – a nice handful of leaves or even chunk of bark would be pretty damn helpful in getting the gunk off of the bottom of her shoe.

Looking in front of, beside – left and right – and behind her one last time to ascertain that she really was alone, Stress began to hop forward. She was trying her best to keep her socks clean and she knew that if she put her shoe back on, then she would be sticking to the dirt every other step… or walk all lopsided. Hopping was better.

Just as long as she wasn't performing some kind of weird hopping mating ritual that would attract hopping newsboys. The way her day was going so far, she wouldn't put it past this place…

She only stumbled once or twice – alright twelve times, but who was counting? – as she hopped straight down the road, her one shoe resting on her right hand. She had both arms extended outwards in an attempt to keep her balance but it was not working so well. In fact, by the time she finally made it over to the tree, her sock was entirely filthy.

Still, Stress continued with the pretense of attempting to keep herself clean as she turned the corner. However, once she turned the corner, her surprise led her to just stand straight up finally, not even thinking about her shoe-less foot.

She had not been expecting this. True, the big tree she had spotted from back at the Mad Patch and March Hair's place was there but it was not just a tree. It was a giant tree – complete with a person sized door built into the tree trunk. And, in case she had doubts that it really was a door, there was a large, electronic sign set right above it; the sign read in a blinking red font: ENTER.

Approaching the door, Stress only remembered her whole gum-on-my-shoe (it was Big Red, she had realized at some point when the cinnamon scent reached her nose) problem – and that was only because she was attempting to turn the knob with her shoe-covered hand.

She muttered a curse under her breath – she was no longer amazed by this place but, rather, quite ticked off – and rubbed the sole of her shoe against the rough bark of the tree. As soon as she was satisfied enough that she could walk without having to yank her foot up, she slid her shoe back on.

And then she reached back for the door knob.

Stress was pleasantly surprised to see that, when she turned the round knob, the door actually opened. _Am I actually making progress in this silly place? _

The answer to that hit her square in the face.

No.

As soon as the door was open, she found herself staring at the one thing that she did not think she would see: herself. Hidden right behind the door was a glass mirror that took up the entire width and length of the tree's strange door.

"Oh, come on," Stress complained. She had the desire to pick up a rock and throw it at the glistening mirror, she was that annoyed. After spending the whole day so far being confused, the experience at the celebration and, of course, the gum had made her frustrated. And now this.

Instead of breaking the mirror – she did not think she could handle seven years bad luck on top of everything else that was happening – she just sighed and let her forehead fall forward.

She had been expecting her forehead to come in contact with a cool, plane of reflective glass so it was no shock that, when all she felt was something wet and wiggly, she yanked her head back.

"What the hell?" she said out loud, glaring at the mirror. Her reflection did not glare back, though. The Stress in the mirror winked. "Okay, that was weird."

Tentatively, she stuck one of her fingers out and poked the mirror. It felt just as wet and wiggly as it did for her forehead but with one difference: her finger did not just poke the glass, it got sucked up by it.

She pulled her hand back, too, and stared at her finger. It looked perfectly normal to her, as if it had not just disappeared into a deceptive mirror.

"I wonder…" she mumbled to herself as she put her hand out again, this time palm flat up against the glass. Slowly, she pushed. Her hand went right through.

Her curiosity piqued – and her frustration and annoyance temporarily forgotten – Stress put her foot up against the glass. It went right through, too.

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Praying silently that she found something interesting on the other side of the mirror – _Would Mirror World be better than Newsieland? _– she followed through with the rest of her body.

There was a brief moment of discombobulation and complete confusion – she had the insane urge to don a fruit hat and yell out "CONGA" – before she emerged from the other end. Slowly, she opened one of her eyes before opening the second and, then, promptly rolling them both.

"You've got to be kidding me."

After all that, she had found herself right smack where she started: the small, claustrophobic room with one exit and that weird glass table.

As quickly as she could, Stress turned around in an attempt to go back through the mirror. If the choice was between being trapped in this tiny room or being alone on the streets of Newsieland, she was going to take the streets.

"Ouch!"

The mirror was no longer there. She had just turned around and walked straight into a very solid wall.

She lifted her hand up and started to rub her smarting nose. She was mumbling to herself – a mixture of stupid mirrors, stupid rooms and stupid curiosity – when she heard a low chuckle come from behind her.

Stress tensed. She was almost positive that she was alone in the room. Slowly, she turned herself around – there definitely was another person in the room with her: an averaged size girl (which was saying something considering the different sizes Stress has been since falling into Newsieland) with a dark newsie-style cap perched over her short dirty-blonde hair and a rather amused grin spread out over her face.

"What you go and walk into the wall for, you dope?"

Stress was so surprised to find another person in there with her that she did not even notice that she had been insulted. "Who are you?"

There was that chuckle again. It was an intimidating sound, as if this girl knew a lot more than she let on. "Wouldn't you like to know?"


End file.
